Summer Sunshine Brings Out The Minibeasts

The sun's come out and bugs are in the news!

The Show Me team have been busy bees, flying about gathering up the best bug-related news and fun stuff we could find for all Show Me readers who are interested in insects...

It's been National Insect Week - a celebration of all things creepy and crawly.

Check out the facts and fun stuff on their website - including how to make your garden insect-friendly.

© National Insect Week

The Natural History Museum has been talking about beetles.

Around 250 of the UK's 4000 species of beetle haven't been seen in the wild since 1970 and could be in danger of extinction.

© NHM

Conservation charity, Buglife, says many of these beetles may already be extinct and that more should be done to protect the habitats of these important creatures.

Beetles carry out many essential roles in nature such as pollinating flowers and recycling dead wood, dung and the bodies of dead animals.

Here at Show Me we know you LOVE finding out more about minibeasts, so here are fascinating facts and gripping games to keep you informed and entertained:

A pooter is a device scientists use to pick up small objects, like insects, without hurting them. (Imagine a miniature vacuum cleaner with your lungs working as the engine.)

Pooter Plans shows you how to make your own brilliant bug-catcher.

© NHM

Once you've caught an insect with your pooter, you'll need to identify it.

Try Insect Instant I.D. from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

© OUMNH

This is Zoe. She works for the Natural History Museum in London as an entomologist - a scientist who studies insects.

So how did she end becoming an entomologist?

Find out more on the Museum's 'I want to be an 'ologist' page.

© NHM

Fancy trying your hand as a curator of insects? This smiley man is Ken - he looks after the insect collection at Museum Victoria in Australia, and he needs YOUR help.

In the Bug Catcher game, you sort and label the bugs in a cabinet. Find out what's missing, then go into the field to catch some more bugs for the collection!

© Museum Victoria

In A Ladybug's Life, you're the ladybird, escaping wood ants to chomp as many aphids as you can!

This game is from the Royal Museum in Edinburgh.

© National Museums of Scotland

Beware the ladybird spider on the Tripwire of Terror, from Planet Arkive.

© Planet Arkive

Splat some pests who are attacking crops in Cotton Pickin' Bugs game from Merseyside Maritime Museum.

© National Museums Liverpool

Still want MORE minibeasts?!

You can get up close and personal with some insects (some dead, some alive!) if you buzz off to one of these fantastic museums:

World Museum Liverpool is home to a colony of leaf-cutter ants.

There's also a colony of bees in the museum's Bug House, where you can look at specimens of beetles, flies, spiders, scorpions, centipedes and millipedes.

© National Museums Liverpool

There's also a colony of leaf-cutter ants at London's Natural History Museum.

The museum's Creepy Crawlies gallery is not to be missed - find out what makes locusts swarm, how termites air-condition their homes and how bees tell where flowers can be found.

© NHM

More minibeasts can be found in museums all over the UK, including Ulster Museum in Belfast, The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow, Burnley Natural History Centre in Lancashire and The Cole Museum of Zoology, Reading.

Happy bug hunting - don't forget to Get In Touch and tell us what you find!